


The Artist

by queenoftrivia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Coffee Shops, Fluff, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8876785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenoftrivia/pseuds/queenoftrivia
Summary: Sherlock can't stop staring at the man in the armchair.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in my drafts for like 30 years i just wanted to post it already so here u go

The pencil was dull from hours and hours' worth of sliding across the paper of a battered leather sketchbook stained with coffee and tea and ink and graphite. Its eraser had been rubbed down into disuse, yet its lead's journey continued, sketching objects, people, maybe entire worlds.

The beaten book rested upon a knee. The knee had seen war, but this had only made it stronger. The same could be said of the hand that steadily held the book in place. 

The other hand, which delicately sketched lines in the textured paper, told the story of the life that could have been, would have been, should have been. A life without pain, a life without trauma, a life with meaning.

The tip of the artist's little finger was covered in a dark sheen from using it to smudge graphite on paper, and a small callus could sometimes be seen underneath the wood of the simple HB pencil.

Sherlock only managed to snap his eyes away from the lone interesting man in the cafe when the cashier turned to him and named off an order for two blueberry squares. Dull, boring, predictable. Why weren't the criminal classes doing anything creative nowadays?

Sherlock reminded himself that he  _ could _ just  _ walk away _ from this prosaic job. He had the electrifying cases Lestrade gave him. He had the terrifying, exciting MI6 jobs Mycroft forced him to do occasionally. He could always live with his brother again; it wasn't as if they saw each other at all, what with Mycroft always being at his office and Sherlock always being… well, anywhere else, really.

The reason he was here was because Mrs. Hudson (a lovely older lady who had needed help with getting rid of her criminal husband a few years prior) had been kind enough to offer him the flat above her own in exchange for working at the cafe she owned a couple of streets down. He'd wanted life away from Mycroft for a bit, anyway, and besides, Mrs. Hudson was one of the few people Sherlock  ~~ cared about ~~ tolerated. The situation wasn't ideal, but it was the best option (better than staying with Mycroft, in any case). He figured he could stay for a while longer.

Sherlock leaned on the baked goods counter and glanced around the small establishment at the tedious hum of people. Whether he liked to admit it or not, his strange hobby of deducing people was one of his favorite pastimes. Of course, all of those lives were just as boring as the others, but each one was  _ just _ different enough from the rest to allow Sherlock a little more entertainment. He had seen that quite a few of them had some sort of secret to hide: a tattoo, a pet, a lover or two. He'd even seen a few people with dark pasts. Once, he'd seen a blonde woman with all four.

When this particular man had first stepped through the door, Sherlock could not stop staring. And no, it was  _ not _ because he liked soldiers. (...Okay, maybe a  _ bit.) _

Every conclusion Sherlock came to went against itself; the man was a soldier and a doctor (killed people, saved more), and he was a scholar and an artist (studied things, created more). He seemed calm enough, yet the tremor in his left hand (his dominant) did not go unnoticed as he walked in. The lines in his face hinted at untold stress, yet he looked as if he was the most content man on earth as he settled into the corner of the cafe, leather sketchbook in one hand, coffee cup in the other.

There, every Sunday, the artist sat in the soft red patterned armchair, and there he stayed from ten in the morning until just after sunset, glancing up only once every few minutes to draw inspiration from something in the intricate landscape around him.

As Sherlock would observe him, he would follow his weary, yet inspired gaze (another contradiction) to the bookshelf on the far wall, to the small bar facing the window, to one of the university students just out of class or rushing out to make it to another, to the lone coffee mug left on the centre table, to the messy pile of tabloid magazines on the table in front of him, to the shelf on his right containing all the trinkets that fit nowhere else but here.

When Sherlock wasn't filling dull orders for equally boring customers, he was trying to steal glances over at the artist's notebook. Unfortunately, it was always turned away from Sherlock's gaze, but it never stopped him from trying.

From what he could see from his station, somewhat hidden behind the baked goods counter, Sherlock could also tell that the artist was self-taught, that he had done military service abroad, and that before he was honorably discharged, he had been a surgeon (the tremor in his hand prevented him from returning to his previous profession). The man was now looking for a flat, going by the creases in his clothes; he'd never properly unpacked.

Sherlock wondered, just for a moment, if he would mind sharing a flat.

"Yoo-hoo! Sherlock!" a bright voice suddenly came from behind. Sherlock spun around and found Mrs. Hudson standing in the doorway to the kitchen. 

Sherlock acknowledged her with a… not quite  _ warm, _ just  _ genuine _ grin. He stepped up to her and pecked the air next to her cheek in greeting.

"You look lovely today," she commented as he pulled away. Sherlock gave her a look (every time she managed to speak to him she told him this, it wasn't anything new) and looked down at his clothes. He hadn't really been paying attention before he'd left his flat that morning, so he'd ended up in a teal striped button-down and dark jeans - not exactly what he normally went for, but then again, he didn't exactly care.

"Are you trying to impress someone?" Mrs. Hudson teased lovingly. Sherlock opened his mouth, incredulous at her assumption… and thought of the artist.

His voice got stuck behind his tongue. 

Mrs. Hudson smirked. When Sherlock finally regained his speech, all he could muster was a "Smug… isn't a good look on you," and all it earned him was an even wider grin. Sherlock scowled. His landlady closed the door behind her, completely ignoring Sherlock's childish temper, and looked around at the cafe.

"Oh, the cafe looks lovely now, Sherlock! I love what you've done with it! It looks much more cozy now, what with the little decorations everywhere," Mrs. Hudson complimented. Sherlock let himself smile with pride; a few weeks ago, Mrs. Hudson had given him a dozen boxes, each filled to the brim with little oddities and trinkets, and after letting them sit and gather dust for a week, Sherlock had the brilliant idea to use them to decorate the cafe. With a little help from Lestrade to lug the boxes into the cafe, Sherlock had spent an entire night redecorating the small space.

"This is the first time you've seen it?" Sherlock asked, despite knowing for a fact that Mrs. Hudson had been on holiday for the past week. (She didn't need to know that the Dr. Mendiola she'd gone with was a quack… not yet, anyway.)

"Yes! In fact, I think you deserve the rest of the afternoon off for what you've done! It's wonderful!" She paused. "I can tell you're very proud of it," she commented.

Sherlock's grin dropped. "Nonsense," he dismissed nonchalantly, turning away from Mrs. Hudson's gaze. Of course, she didn't buy it.

"Oh, come now, your face was nearly beaming. I'll take over, dear, you go out and have fun."

As Sherlock rushed to the back to gather his things, he thought of what he could do. He could call Lestrade for a case. He could contact Molly for a nice, fresh cadaver. He could go home and continue his tobacco ash analysis.

Or, he could talk to the artist.

_ What would he want to talk about? What should I say? Should I hide myself behind a mask? Should I reveal myself? What would he think if I asked him to move in with me? Why am I considering sharing a flat with this man? _

When he walked out of the back room, it felt as if he wasn't in control. His mind was still racing as he stepped forward and eventually ended up at the chair across from the man.

"Do you mind?" Sherlock asked, trying his best to hide his nervousness as he gestured to the short black armchair. He suddenly realized that he hadn't put his gloves on. He's usually more in control than this. Good God, what was happening?

The artist looked up from his sketchbook, and Sherlock read mild confusion in his expression for half a second. Then the man's face softened a little and became a polite, somewhat forced smile.

"Not at all, go ahead," he said.

Sherlock hesitated. (He never did this before. Why was he doing it now?) "A-are you sure? It looks like you were busy with something-"

"Oh, what, this?" the man asked, looking at his book with a strange mixture of amusement and disdain. "It's nothing, trust me," he insisted, closing the book with the pencil still inside it.

"Well, it can't be nothing, surely," Sherlock observed, a disbelieving grin dancing on his face as he sat down.

"How can you know?" the man asked, skeptical.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" At the man's unconvinced but curious look (another dichotomy; it never seemed to stop), he continued, "You left your pencil at the page of the unfinished sketch, to finish later. And an artist who treats their own art as nothing wouldn't keep a sketchbook." 

"Ah, quite the observer, aren't you?" the artist noticed.

"It's a thing of mine," Sherlock insisted.

"What else do you know about me?" the man asked, almost teasingly.

Before he could stop himself, Sherlock had revealed every single thing he'd noticed over the past weeks since the artist had first walked through the door.

He fell silent suddenly, and blinked a few times.

"Sorry, got a bit... carried away there," he said awkwardly.  _ Good, _ he thought,  _ way to make a first impression. Reveal that you've been staring at him enough for the past few weeks that you've been able to deduce his whole life story. You've gone and done it again, you stupid- _

"That was amazing."

Blink, blink.

"Sorry, what?"

"That was amazing."

Blink, blink.

"That's… not what people normally say," Sherlock chuckled.

"What do people normally say?" the other asked, as if on cue.

"Piss off," Sherlock admitted. The artist laughed, a good, genuine, almost sweet chuckle. Sherlock grinned, feeling a little laughter of his own threatening to bubble up past his lungs.

Sherlock would've been lying if he said he didn't notice that it looked like the artist hadn't laughed in a long time.

"What can I  _ possibly _ do for you?" the artist asked after he had calmed down a little, his grin still glowing.

"I… wanted to look through your sketchbook, actually, if you don't mind."

The artist's expression shifted from delight to confusion to flattery in less than a second. "Um, my sketchbook?" he said, as if unsure whether they were talking about the same thing.

"Yes."

"O...kay?" He slipped the pencil out of the book and passed the bound drawings over the table. They both lingered their hands on the worn leather before the artist let go and leaned back in his armchair, studying Sherlock's face.

"'Property of Dr. John Watson," Sherlock read aloud, mostly to himself, but loud enough so the artist could hear.

"You knew that, of course," John said.

"I knew you were an army doctor, not your name. I can't deduce everything," Sherlock replied, and opened the book.

As Sherlock sifted through the book, he found exactly what he had expected to see: pages filled with things from the cafe. He found the bookshelf ordered by color, the tabloid magazines, the glass elephant from the shelf, the artist's feet resting on the coffee table. Interspersed between the inanimate objects were pages of people: the kind, motherly smile of Mrs. Hudson, the over-bubbly grin of the cashier (Celine? Cecilia? Ciara? Something along those lines), and-

And-

And.

He couldn't believe it.

It was  _ him. _

Someone had taken time out of their day  _ to draw him. _ Not only that, but  _ to fill an entire page with him. _

Not only was it him; John had somehow managed to make him look…  _ real _ . Mycroft would call Sherlock delusional for something as romantic as this, but it was true. He could  _ see  _ his own emotion in the picture: the curiosity, the boredom, the smugness, the - dare he say it - sadness.

Impossible.  _ Inconceivable. _

Sherlock found himself in awe.

For a few moments, he couldn't understand why. After all, although these were incredibly well done for a self-taught amateur, they were just another portfolio of realistic drawings.

He returned to the beginning of the book again and delicately leafed through the pages, this time taking in every detail, every stroke of the pencil, every smudge, every mistake. And it clicked. Well, something clicked, in any case.

"How on earth do you do this?" Sherlock heard himself ask.

"I… try to add a bit of myself in what I draw," John explained slowly. "I see myself in people, and in things, and so… I draw them as if they're me, as if they're more than just a stranger, or an item."

Sherlock studied the artist across from him. "You've never considered selling these, or doing this professionally?" he asked, and John laughed.

"Haven't heard that one before," he admitted, and Sherlock could tell he wasn't lying. He scoffed.

"These are incredible, John. I'm surprised no one's offered to buy one."

"I've never shown them to anyone."

Sherlock's eyes widened, incredulous.  _ "No one _ has seen these?"

John shook his head. "No one's ever asked. Not until you, anyway."

For a while, the only sound was of the orderly chaos of London, muffled slightly by the cafe walls.

The cafe would close soon, Sherlock realized with a start.

"I should go," Sherlock said, and handed back the book. John finished his tea and placed the empty cup on the table. They rose at the same time, Sherlock slipping his gloves on, John picking up his belongings.

"What about you?" John suddenly asked. Sherlock looked up from his hands.

"What about me?" Sherlock replied.  ~~_ There's nothing about me. _ ~~

"Let's start with your name, yeah?" John encouraged as he walked around the short table to stand just a little closer to Sherlock, a teasing smile gracing his features for just a second. Sherlock sucked in a breath, and then…. 

"And… maybe an address? So we can meet up sometime, get a coffee… somewhere you don't work?" John added, and licked his lips.

Sherlock gave him a dubious look. "Are you flirting with me?" he asked, a small smile threatening to appear.

"Maybe," John admitted, biting his bottom lip ever so slightly.

Sherlock smirked and held out his hand. John took it.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker St.," he said, and winked.


End file.
